Chapter 8 – Executives and Bureaucracies (E-government)
· The Origins of E-government
o Concept of Internet connectivity in public administration policy can be used to “improve efficiency, cut costs, and change the way governments have traditionally interacted with citizens
o Developed initially by US and UK and later on by EU
o Defining E-Governmant:
§ “the use of Internet technology and protocols to transform agency effectiveness, efficiency, and service quality” (Mark Forman, OMB)
§ “E-government, if implemented properly, can improve current government services, increase accountability, result in more accurate and efficient delivery of services, reduce administrative costs and time spent on repetitive tasks for government employees, facilitate greater transparency in the administration of government, and allow greater access to services due to the around the clock availability of the Internet.” (Chadwick)
§ Government-to-Government functionality
· Facilitate better coordination between government institutions
§ Government-to-Business functionality
· Increase awareness of and facilitate purchase of services between the public sector and private business.
§ Government-to-Citizen functionality
· Allow access to government information, government services, and channels of participation.
o The United States
§ National Performance Review (1993) initiated e-gov projects
§ Firstgov – gov portal – launched in 2000
§ E-government agenda developed heavily by executive branch
§ Clinton administration believed the Internet could transform citizen-government relations
§ Future speculation that customers would not need to have knowledge of the structure of government but would instead be able to transact on the basis of a number of clearly identifiable service themes
§ Adherence to ‘public management’ approach to e-government. Customer-driven model (not citizen/government/producer driven)
o The United Kingdom
§ Basic aims of e-gov project: to provide better and more efficient services to business and to citizens; improve the efficiency and openness of government administration, and secure substantial cost savings for the taxpayer.
§ Little consideration for how the Net might provide for greater citizen influence on policy making
§ Aim of government was to emulate private sector practices which involve innovative use of technologies in ‘knowledge management’
· The Promises and Paradoxes of E-government
o Popular systems in the 1970s included: databases, fiscal management systems, fiscal budgeting systems, and inventories of government property.
o E-government has roots outside of the scholarly domain, in institutional gray papers endorsing public management strategies
o Cost Reduction
§ Most savings supposedly arise from switches from paper-based to web-based systems
§ Some industrializing countries are embracing e-government in order to reduce corruption
§ Other countries such as China are seizing upon e-government’s ability to cut bureaucratic costs
§ Savings from reduction of staff levels
§ In reality costs have risen or stayed the same due to difficulties in implementing new technologies
§ Private sector experiences have not proved analogous to e-government
§ Public sector cannot justify job losses as easily
§ In developing countries, workers are cheaper than technology
o Coordination
§ E-government provides a means of integrating diverse components of the state bureaucracy through networked teamwork while simultaneously empowering workers by enhancing their ability to make decisions
§ Examples include http://www.business.gov, http://www.seniors.gov, and http://www.consumer.gov
§ Set-backs emerge due to departmental resistance and initial costs.
§ Also there are constitutional concerns when joining up separate parts of government.
o Effectiveness
§ Internet and E-government may result in a flattening of hierarchic power-structures and a more flexible and dynamic decision-making framework
§ Concerns for privacy and other civil rights when beefing up the government’s effectiveness
§ Networks within pre-existing institutional structures appear harder to integrate than between independent organizations
· E-government as Democratization
o Government Websites: Interactivity and Opportunities for Deliberation
§ Across all policy sectors, early studies found the scores for interaction and potential for deliberation to be low
o Outward facing networks
§ Systems should be outward facing networks in which the boundaries between an organization’s internal information processing and its external users effectively melt away.
o The blurring of Executive and Legislative functions
§ E-government raises issues of accountability along with the idea that elected representatives may become disintermediated.
§ Bureaucracies increasingly use administrative technologies to police themselves, decreasing the need for external accountability checks
o Democratization of Design
§ Possibility to allow citizens to design some of the e-government’s outward facing or non-sensitive utilities.
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